I started using the term "altered state of reality" here at SWJ when referring to statements made often by Putin and his FM during Crimea and now eastern Ukraine and Syria....I also indicated a number of times that it is extremely dangerous when the leader of a nuclear country starts to truly believe and "drink his own cool aid".............WHICH is where we are right now with Putin.....he now believes he can do whatever he pleases and the West will not stop him because basically he is right...the West has not truly pulled out the "Stop sign"....with an Abrams tank parked behind it.....

If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it, and you will even come to believe it yourself.
- Goebbels

This has been the price paid by the US for the Obama WH retrenchment in eastern Ukraine and Syria.....